Blemished and Beautiful
You are wholly beautiful, My love, and without blemish. (Song of Songs 4:7)
You are wholly beautiful, My love, and without blemish.
(Song of Songs 4:7)
Sacred Scripture is inerrant, and every word God sings over us is truth. Yet how can my Divine Bridegroom say such a seemingly absurd thing? When I look in the mirror, I see plenty of blemishes; not just physical defects, but a multitude of spiritual and emotional ones. I am far from blemish-free!
Yet Jesus, our Divine Bridegroom, claims otherwise. I have to believe Him, for He is Truth incarnate. The question is, how?
When I opened St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue at random, I was given the answer. God the Father told Caterina:
“And if anyone should ask me what this soul is, I would say: she is another me, made so by the union of love … Oh, how lovely, how lovely beyond all loveliness, is the dwelling place of the soul’s perfect union with Me! Not even the soul’s own will stands between us, because she has become one thing with Me. She gives forth a fragrance to the whole wide world, the fruit of constant humble prayers” (Dialogue 96).
The Kiss of His Mouth
In the Song of Songs, the divine union of the soul with Christ the Bridegroom is revealed to us right from the outset: “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth” (Song of Songs 1:2). The soul united to Christ in the kiss of peace resembles Him to such a degree that truly He can call out in delight, You are wholly beautiful and without blemish! Our human failings are washed clean by His unitive embrace; His Light surrounds, envelopes, and subsumes our paltry light. In Him, through Him, by Him we become truly beautiful.
St. Caterina teaches that the only way to reach the mouth of Christ and receive His kiss is through His Sacred Heart. Climbing the body of Christ like a staircase, we first kneel at His feet in submissive and contrite love, then spiritually progress to His pierced side, where His heart is exposed in Divine Mercy. Through the heart of Christ we reach the fullness of His loving embrace, where in unity and wholeness we receive His divine kiss.
We can interpret the mouth in the Song of Songs as representing our soul.
“So it is with the soul,” God the Father instructed St. Caterina. “First she speaks to Me with the tongue of holy and constant prayer that is in the mouth of her holy desire. This tongue has an external and an interior language. Interiorly, the soul offers Me tender loving desires for the salvation of souls. Externally, she proclaims the teaching of My Truth … she has found her spiritual peace and quiet in the mouth … the soul finds such a peace that there is nothing that can disturb her” (Dialogue 76).
And now we’ve come full circle. It’s when we accept the kiss of peace, the kiss Jesus longs and desires to give us, that we’re transformed into a creature wholly beautiful in His sight. When we give our selfish self-will to our Bridegroom, and allow Him to transform our will into complete alignment with Divine Will, our blemishes vanish and we are embraced fully by His powerful love.
“Oh, how lovely, how lovely beyond all loveliness, is the dwelling place of the soul’s perfect union with Me … How beautiful you are, My love, how beautiful you are! (Dialogue 96 and Song of Songs 1:15)
Let Him kiss you with the kisses of His mouth, let His kiss of peace transform you into who you are meant to be!
